The Lost Asgardian (Loki)

Entry 2) Fenrir

"Meds" by Placebo
Anyone interested in making a trailer? I'd do any payment you would like! (Follow, dedication, shout-out, story read)

Meds taken.

-Check.

Herbal calming tea drank.

-Check.

Look for talking cats under my bed.

-Check.

My eyes flickered to the final check mark. I silently berated myself for that last one, but omitting it from my list would likely disrupt my entire day. The fear lingered that, upon returning home later in the evening, a talking cat might be lurking under my bed, waiting for my arrival. It had been three months since I last encountered the soft-spoken feline, but the absence didn't guarantee he wouldn't make a sudden reappearance when least expected. The gorgeous black cat usually engaged in small talk, asking about my day, ensuring I took my meds and had some tea. Typically, his visits were limited to these routine check-ins. Occasionally, we exchanged pleasantries, but more often than not, I ignored him until he left on his own accord.

The cat calls himself Thorn. I can't really complain when I see that certain hallucination for he's friendly enough. But sometimes after a long day of work and then yet another brutal time of hearing my mother complain of me to my stepfather, coming back to my room and finding a talking cat atop my bed makes the night worse.

Thankfully, I don't share this diary with Dr. Carter. I've started maintaining two journals—one for her and one that I keep always hidden on me. The journal I give her is a pleasant one, filled with descriptions of how I take my meds and random ramblings about my hopes and dreams. This other journal, the honest one, holds the raw truth. I can't afford to let people truly know what I see or hear around me. If Dr. Carter discovered I witnessed the hallucination of the man sitting beside me in therapy the other night, she might consider recommending that out-of-state treatment facility in Chicago to my mother again. The thought of explaining that the man had the same voice as the talking cat that haunts me is unimaginable.

Such revelations could lead to my indefinite commitment to the psyche ward. I'd be under constant in-care treatment, unable to do anything, not even go to Starbucks. It's probably the fear of being without coffee that keeps me from voluntarily committing myself to an asylum. Realistically, there isn't much or anyone besides my mother that I have. No other family, no friends, no boyfriend—just a measly job where I make nine-fifty an hour.

Pretty much having a hot cup of caramel macchiato almost daily and reading stories is what helps me feel as if I'm as normal as anyone else. It's only when my hallucinations visit that my illusion that I'm normal gets brutally shattered. As I snapped my notebook shut, I realized more individuals were leaving the store. Once eight o'clock at night hits, it means it's the dead-time for book selling. Mrs. Wilkinson is a friendly old bird who was kind enough to keep me employed since the fall I turned eighteen. Not many people would hire a girl who had severe schizophrenia and zero recommendations, but Mrs. Wilkinson was different. She saw past my illness and the typical label people branded me. Being in a small town like Elk Horn Illinois, everybody knew everybody for the most part. Unfortunately, with such a small town of only three-thousand two-hundred and fifty-nine, that meant quite a few individuals remember or have heard the story of the Founders Day Disaster of 2019.

That day marked my first-ever official date. At the age of seventeen, Corey Jackson invited me to the Founders Day party, a significant social event celebrated in Elkhorn each year. Against my mother's advice, I accepted the date, ignoring her warnings about potential triggers for the paranoia linked to my schizophrenia. Excitement over the prospect of feeling normal, adorned in a pretty dress, with a great boy who liked me after our school meeting, overrode any caution.